Smaller folk, the majority of whom are female have been under served by canoe builders.

The Curtis MayFly, Sawyer StarLite, BlackHawk KittyHawk and Shadow 12 are distant memories from an age before the public decided solo canoeing was too skill intensive, and Placid's SpitFire is rarely converted to kneeling use.

DY also did a series of downsized solo trippers, the Curtis Vagabond in 82, the Swift Loon in 92 and the Placid RapidFire in 05. [The Hemlock Kestral, is a 98 retooling of Vagabond.] But DY
wanted a shorter, more efficient solo tripper/ pack canoe with less wetted surface/drag/skin friction.

Now, Swift C&K, from the land of Hockey, Maple Syrup and Poutine, announces a new DY solo tripper for the petite amongst us.

The Keewaydin 14, 28' max beam, 24" waterline width with 4 inches tumblehome at rails amidships, 2.5/1.25" differential rocker and weight around 24 lbs.
Shear? tough to tell until molded, ~ 16.5/11.5/15.5"

A David Yost design, available early summer '14. I do not know if we are expected to paddle the thing with our feet on the front thwart or not.

Tried attaching an image: no joy. It's an out of focus i phone thing anyway.

I agree that is a segment of the solo market long neglected. The Starlight was the boat I always felt Bell should make a small person's Magic to emulate. Blackhawks Zephyr was another small solo that a smaller person could trip in that fit in that niche. I'm pretty tall, but I've paddled both pretty extensively, as well as the 12 foot Shadow, and I think it's an interesting foray by Swift.

Anyway you can attach that image to a private email?

PK

Charlie you have to put the pic first on a photo hosting service to find joy. But if you email it to me I can put it on Photobucket, resize it and post it here for all to see. PK might have the same thing in mind..dunno.

Here is what I think is a self portrait of Mr. W and the 14 foot Kee

Naw, that's Mr Y, David Yost's own self, in his, as usual, pug ugly plug boat, and fuzzy around the edges as well!

I swar you two are getting to look like twins..

I assume that the photo posted on the Swift Canoe Facebook page on November 23 is this stripper prototype as well?

You can now post photos without hosting them online some where.

See the bottom of the post a reply editor, where you get upload attachments (choose the file and then add the file).

Not sure how well this works from a mobile device.

_________________
Brian
http://www.JohnstonPursuits.ca

 

Looks very similar to the Kestrel.

Bit shorter, bit more rocker, bit higher shear. Could be an ultimate solo canoe contender. Maybe with just a touch higher shear. I'll surely give this one a paddle this summer.

As the boat is the wooden plug and not a production model there are things that could be different in the final result. Like top shear and thwart placement.

No one solo is perfect. Still looking for the perfect house too!

I have a 14 foot Huron, or whats left of one, that I intend to use as my solo boat. I shall have to see how it paddles first.

Looks like another beaut from DY. Incidentally, anyone know how well the 15' Kee is selling? just wondering how well its being accepted by the smallish solo boat market.

Moonman.